(They should also be rewarded for being incredibly talented musicians in their own right who, despite being supremely cool on every level, are incredibly forgiving of us middle-aged suburban parents reliving our teenage music-crushes through these performances and weekly rehearsals and never ever ever make us feel un-cool which they could so easily do. Because we are. And it would be like shooting fish in a bucket, or whatever that saying is. But that’s another story, and one that she keeps meaning to write to the School of Rock’s Corporate Office…)

Back in the proverbial day, when Laura was in elementary school, the word transparency referred to the plastic sheet used on an overhead projector to teach math or science or English. The teacher would turn the projector on, line it up with the pull-down screen at the front of the classroom, and slap on the transparency so everyone could see it. Invariably, of course, the transparency was upside down, or backwards, or in some other way projectionally-impaired, but eventually the teacher would get it right and point at the clear plastic sheet and write on it with some kind of erasable waxy pencil.

Lately, Laura keeps hearing the word transparency everywhere — in business articles, in political articles, in blogs. It’s one of those words that has suddenly caught on and everybody’s using it to describe openness and the notion that when everything is visible people will be inspired to participate: if they feel in on the process, whatever that process is, then they feel part of that process and empowered to act.

Obviously Laura agrees that transparency is a good thing, you know, in general. But she’s confused about the notion of transparency in blogs: specifically, she just doesn’t understand how one can be completely transparent in what they blog about (family, friends, neighbors, people they hate) and expect to live to write another blog! Really. Like, how does that work?! Laura knows tons of bloggers who blog about their lives in really honest and open and — wait, here comes the word! — transparent ways — in fact, she reads several of these kinds of blogs daily and is, quite frankly, addicted to their frankness! Sometimes she’ll read an entry, enjoying all the juicy anonymous-ized bits, and wonder what will happen when that anonymous-ized person (who really isn’t that anonymous, probably, among the blogger’s friends) reads the blog? Does the person about whom the unflattering or too-revealing blog was written email the blogger or go up to them in the supermarket and say, Hey, WTF? Does the person ignore the blog and the blogger and pretend they never read it and that it doesn’t exist? How do they deal with their shame and anger at being written about — or, outed, for whatever the blogger outed them for — in such a public forum?

Given Laura’s traffic stats, she probably wouldn’t really have this problem. She could probably write about anyone and everyone who is annoying or irritating or jerky with no fear of repercussion since in order to have repercussions, you have to have readers! But seriously. What is the deal? Or, not to put too fine a point on it, How do they get away with it?

If anyone has thoughts on this topic of transparency, Laura hopes you’ll leave a comment. See, that would prove that transparency does indeed work. By being transparent about her confusion with transparency, Laura hopes you’ll feel like part of the process — her process — of branting and thus feel inspired and empowered to act and voice your thoughts.

Laura realized that in her haste yesterday to set up her Emergency Brant she failed to provide more details about the new book, Get Over Yourself! which she wrote with matchmaker-extraordinaire Patti Novak. So Laura’s going to post the back-ad from the book jacket to give readers of her Brant (both of them) (hi Janet!) a better sense of what the book is about. Click on the image to enlarge it so you can read it.

Get Over Yourself! will be officially published on December 30, 2008 by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House (where Laura used to work). For more information about the book, or about Patti, or about the book AND Patti, please leave Laura a comment and she’ll get back to you with the information you need.

Since Laura went through all the trouble of moving her Brant so she could post photos and visuals, she’s going to attempt to post the book jacket of the new book she wrote with matchmaker-extraordinaire Patti Novak: Get Over Yourself!

OMG. That was so easy. One two three and there it was! Boy is she wishing she switched a year ago!

Laura’s moving. She’s moving her brant to a new place because the place where her old brant was mysteriously stopped allowing her to post photos. She tried everything — and she means everything — to figure out how to make it work — Laura, just for the record, isn’t someone who just leaves when the going gets rough — but no matter what she did, no matter how hard she tried, no matter how many times she tried to grasp the techno-speak of her previous blog-company, she failed. After months of not being able to post photos, she stopped branting altogether because it just wasn’t fun anymore. And that’s when she knew she had to take matters into her own hands and relocate to a place that would be more hospitable to her photo-posting needs.

And so here she is. At blogspot. Where lots of people have their blogs. Laura’s hoping this new home for her brant will make her want to brant again — and more regularly — because it seems altogether easier. We’ll see. Because while Laura likes to blame everything — her boiler, her clogs, her bout with lice, her blog-hoster — we all know that the main reason Laura doesn’t brant for months at a time is because she’s just plain lazy.

Here’s hoping the move gives her a big jolt of energy and a renewed sense of branting-purpose.